


After All Not So Alone

by StellarRequiem



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Christmas Eve, Defenders Spoilers, F/M, Feels, emotions and cuddles, kastle christmas, right after season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 13:06:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13214376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarRequiem/pseuds/StellarRequiem
Summary: Frank and Karen find each other on Christmas Eve, following the events of The Punisher.





	After All Not So Alone

 

Funny, how the world moves. Christmas Eve means a year to the day since Matt finally told her the truth. It had felt so significant at the time, like such a revelation, and she’d felt so stupid and so angry and hurt and shocked—and perhaps a little ashamed of herself for letting herself rule out something so obvious in hindsight because of his blindness—and now, all she feels is empty. Matt is gone. Foggy sees him when he looks at Karen, and so he’s evaporated from her life as well. It’s Christmas Eve again, and she’s alone.

 

*

 

Group’s canceled, officially. “ _Go home to your families, even if it’s hard.” “Is that what we were over there for?”_

About half of them don’t have families left, one reason or another. But Amy, their resident airman, pulled some potluck thing together for their lot, and group stayed cancelled.

Frank knows better than to show.

Group is a space without judgement, sure, but he knows what he is to most of them. A cautionary tale. A warning. Be here now, so you don’t end up like Castle, showing up a year too late with a body count stateside and looking like you’ve been run over by a truck. Some of them hate him. Some of them are scared of him. Some of them are repulsed by what he’s done, or by what he’s no longer doing. Some of them remind him of Lewis. Some of them don’t give a shit. In any case, he doesn’t belong in the mix of their holiday. He’s not sure he wants to.

 

*

 

Chinese takeout feels somehow on the nose for a lonely Christmas, so Karen orders in Indian food. Three bites into her masala, though, and a freight train of sensory memory slams her back to a restaurant with chili pepper lights and little votive candles and the food threatens to come right back up her throat.

 _Is this grief,_ she wonders, _or just revulsion at how the world repeats itself?_

She finishes the naan but not the masala, unable to stomach the feeling that rises with the taste—not much of a Christmas dinner, she knows. Even her tiny tree seems to look put out on her behalf, branches sagging under the heavier ornaments like sympathetic frowns.

“You stop,” Karen orders. It doesn’t.

Eventually, she caves to its sympathy and to the gods of Grubhub, and orders Italian instead. As if the restaurant, too, knows how pitiful she is, and either wants to either compensate or rub it in, they upgrade her to a family sized platter of vodka penne on the house.

 

*

 

The construction site is fenced in and chained up for the night. Work isn’t an option. At 6:00 it’s early enough that restaurants are open if not stores, and he throws around the idea of something to eat for a bit before giving up on it. Penned into a table in an overcrowded restaurant—doesn’t sound like fun. Sounds like a nervous breakdown.

Last Christmas he was tailing a bunch of bikers through snowy nowhere Michigan, waiting for them to get back on the road and satisfactorily far from civilization. It was frigid in the van, but he watched their motel from there. Hat, gloves, coat, jacket, sleeping bag up around his shoulders, it all reminded him of a stake-out a thousand miles, away and what felt like years ago. He’d half expected to hear a wisecrack from Billy Russo break through the chill. But what he was remembering . . . That was back when Russo had a face. That was back before Frank knew he didn’t deserve one.

Last he checked, Russo’s still in the hospital. Comatose. There’s no one left on the naughty list. Nothing to distract. Nothing to fill the growing void in his chest as the snow starts to fall. Maria was never sentimental about Christmas. She liked her autumn holidays. But the kids—

Lisa almost cried on the Skype call that third tour. Wanted Daddy home for Christmas. Was scared he might be lonely out there in the desert in a tent full of guys. Knew deep down, maybe, that he didn’t mind not being home. Not like he should have.

He can barely remember her face—

If he sits still he’ll lose his mind and he knows sit, so a walk it is.

The way he’s feeling, he’ll probably circle all of Manhattan.

 

*

 

It’s an odd thought, but once it lodges in her brain it won’t shake back out. The Italian restaurant included a little plastic vase and a fake white flower with her meal, as if shitty ambiance were necessary for consuming their food. It’s kind of endearing, though, and it manages to make her smile. Karen is readying to set it out on her table when the thought that won’t go occurs to her: _put it in the window._ Like Frank’s roses. A signal to the right person or people that she wants to talk.

Or, at least, share some of this excessive pasta.

 

*

 

He’s got no good reason for walking where he does. It’s an hour and a half of it to get there and it’s not through interesting neighborhoods. Only thing this way is apartments and the shit—Starbucks, CVS—that gets stuffed underneath them.

It’s been two months since he talked to Karen.

_“You’re saying you don’t want to see me?” “Shit, no. Of course not. I’m saying no one should see me with you for a while. I’m trying the dead man thing again—” “and you don’t want to be seen with someone Frank Castle knew while Pete is getting his feet on the ground.” “I don’t want anyone else left out there who has it out for Castle seeing him with you.”_

She’d been pissed—she hates feeling like a decision has been made for her. Hates knowing there’s no easy page turn to happily ever after, that the shit, it never stops for him. She wasn’t happy and probably still isn’t, though she’d known he had a point. She’d let him walk away with no ultimatum but _“Frank—don’t disappear forever, ok?”_

He’d nodded. Not sure that counts as a promise, but it’s been a few months now, so, if it was, maybe it’s time to keep it. Maybe. If she’s alone. If she’s even in town. If she wants to. If—

Gangly and awkward, a single oversized bloom that’s got to be fake sits in a plastic Pellegrino bottle in her window when he walks by.

She wants to.

 

*

 

Three hard knocks at her door shake Karen from her pasta-coma reverie, and she nearly sloshes her glass of wine on herself.

_Who the hell?_

_. . . Foggy?_

No way. Maybe someone from work? More likely a neighbor’s confused guest. In any case, it’s unexpected, and she waits, poised to fight or flee, on the edge of her couch cushion, for some signal as to who it could be.

She can just barely hear it through the door:

“Karen. It’s Pete.” ‘ _Pete.’_

She never thought that suited him.

She _does_ slosh wine, onto the table, as she shoves it down and scrambles for the door. Like an idiot, she doesn’t check the peephole before she swings it wide open.

And there he is.

It’s been a few months. The beard isn’t back, but he’s grown a bit of scruff, and it flatters the angles of his face. Not too sharp: by his standards, he even looks healthy.

“Hey,” he says, as she takes him in, frozen in the doorway. Her voice cracks when she tries to answer.

“Hey, Frank.”

She throws her arms around his neck before he can reply.

“You’re the last person I expected to see,” she says upon releasing him, waving him inside.

“Even with that ridiculous flower?”

“Shot in the dark, what can I say?”

Frank hums, not entirely a laugh, but nearly. “Sometimes those do land.”

“Apparently . . . I’m glad this one did.”

Their eyes meet for a moment. A _something still there_ moment that brings her back for a moment to an elevator reeking of blood. She chokes away the memory and asks “wine?”

Frank nods. She can see the memory in his eyes, too.

She gestures for him to take up residence at her table, the aluminum tin of pasta acting as its centerpiece alongside a bottle of chianti that cost more than the Indian and Italian combined.

“Home cooking, I see,” He declares, ducking into her kitchen to fetch a plate while she hunts down a glass for him, and retrieves her own from the coffee table.

“I wasn’t in the mood, I guess. It’s pretty good for delivery, though. Help yourself, I already had some.”

“You eat like a bird,” he says, glancing at the missing corner of the pasta tin.

“No, _you_ eat like an army,” she retorts. She doesn’t tell him about the Indian food in the fridge, the smell of its rich spices still hanging in the air.

“Fair enough.”

Frank seats himself, and pours a heavy glass of wine into her cup already on the table. He fills his own only after she’s seated, and she serves him while he does.

“This is good shit,” he declares upon taking a bite.

“It’s probably cold shit. You _can_ heat it up, you know.”

Frank shrugs, humming the grunting, wordless equivalent of _I’m fine._ He says that a lot, one way or another. She wonders if it’s ever true.

 

*

 

Karen looks tired. Not run down, _exhausted_. Her eyes are heavy, laden down by the swollen circles beneath. She looks good otherwise, weight, hair, all that. Just endlessly tired. The watery joy-relief in her gaze as she looks at him over the top of her wine glass speaks to it as much as anything. It’s a special kind of tired that can make a person happy to see someone like him.

“You working through the holiday?” he asks. “You look it.”

“Gee, thanks,” she scoffs. “But yeah. The world doesn’t stop just because it’s Christmas, you know? And I, uhm, may have picked up a few other pieces for staff with family to visit out of town.”

“Aren’t you one of those people?”

She looks askance.

“I’m happy where I am.”

Lonely, she’d said. By the river those months ago. Not _happy_ at all. Yet here she sits.

“Huh,” he replies.

She offers no more in response but to pull a long drink from her wine glass.

“What kinds of stories?” he asks after a few bites.

“Oh, puff pieces mostly. Some op-eds to fill space, you know, just whatever you don’t need to be an expert to write on.”

“So, half the paper.”

“ _Hardly!”_ there’s a near-laugh in her tone. “We’re a serious paper, Frank. Not _all_ that much of it is puff.”

He rocks back in his seat, pulling his hands up in mock defense as he smirks at her. “Did I hit a nerve or something there, Ms. God’s gift to journalism?”

“Oh, fuck off, Frank,” she retorts, but she’s laughing.

“What? I was serious. New York would rest easy without the shit you dig up--no one’s safe from Karen Page, though.”

“Except you, according to my boss. You should have heard the chewing out he gave me when you showed up on the news still alive.”

Shit, they’re like a billboard, him and her. Giant neon sign advertising how fucked up people always know each other. It’s no good for her—but too late now.

“How was that your fault?” he asks.

“Apparently, I’m a bad liar. I told him I didn’t know you were alive, but . . .”

Frank snorts.

“With a shit-eating grin, I’m sure.”

“Well, not a conscious one.” She throws him a conspiratorial look, and he lets himself laugh. It’s still a rusty action, that.

He knows the truth of it can’t be that funny. He knows how it had looked when he rose from the dead on the news. He knows what kind of livid a person might be if they thought she was in league with him, even if they knew better about the bombing and the accusations and the shit. If she gave herself away, it wasn’t because she was having a laugh. It was probably that she was in agony, worrying about him the way she does.

Considering what happened to Red, it’d be a stupid thing to tell her not to.

But he doesn’t say word one about that.

Karen blinks into her wine in the lull that follows. She takes another long sip.

“How have you been, Frank?” she asks as she sets her glass back down.

“Fine,” he says, but he can feel his head shaking. Reflex. Knee-jerk reaction of honesty when she’s around. The corner of her mouth flicks into a frown.

“Are you still going to group?”

“Yeah. It’s—you know, it’s something.” Keeps him grounded, if only by reminding him that there are people out there who know war and who are living without it. People out there who hate it. People out there who don’t miss it at all, who are at home in the silence.

Karen looks at him like she can read all those feelings like a book. He looks away.

“Curtis’ll be impressed I did something sociable with my night. Thanks for letting me in—I’m off the hook for a lecture, now.”

She smiles the soft smile of false humor.

“Any time. We all need scapegoats from the people looking out for us, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s exactly how that works.”

She chuckles, and lets him change the subject to the pasta. Not the best. She should try this other place—no shit, it’s not on fucking Grubhub. Real family stuff never is, or gets buried under the sponsored crap. Oh, is he the pasta expert? Maria’s ziti recipe made him one, yeah.

Maria made spaghetti at Christmas. Fuck hams and all that. The kids loved it.

Karen looks at him with that smile so happy-sad it could break his heart just a little more to know it’s all on his behalf.

 

*

 

She’s not usually this good at avoidance where Frank is concerned, but then again, they both know that there are things they aren’t saying; is it dishonesty if they know what the unsaid words probably are? Frank talks about his family and his memories, but not about what it’s like to have Christmas without them, not how he’s feeling right now. And he doesn’t ask her where her friends are, and she doesn’t have to say that they’ve all disappeared like dust in the wind. He knows. She knows. They always know. Sometimes they have to say it aloud for each other—make each other face their demons—but not right now.

Hell, it’s Christmas, isn’t it? _Isn’t it?_

She tells herself she won’t open any wounds, and she’s surprised when he’s the one that does.

 

*

 

Karen takes his empty plate for him, wandering into the kitchen. Her movements are distracted. And it lands: She’s got family. They exist. They’re alive. For a second that hits him like an anvil in one of those old cartoons and the words are out of his mouth before he can knock any sense into himself.

“Hey,” he calls after her. She glances over her shoulder at him. “I know you’ve lost people here, but you’ve got family, don’t you? Why are you here, Karen?”

She sets her plate in the sink too hard, with a clang.

“My parents and I . . . aren’t close,” she says. The words are tight.

“I’m sorry.” For more than the answer, for the question. For going there. Breaking the unspoken truce of no-heavy-shit-for-once.

“No,” she turns back to him quickly, “it’s a fair question. I mean, I _have_ a family, right? You'd think I'd want to hold onto that. It's just that, since--never mind."

Frank shakes his head and stands. He brings her wine into the kitchen for her, setting it on the table that serves as an island, leaning across it with his own glass in hand.

“You want to say what happened?”

For a second she blanches. Sheet-white. She’s not gonna say shit—

But she does.

“My brother died when I was 18,” she blurts. “Car crash. He just drove right off the road, he—” Karen’s emotions, her heart, it’s always right there on her sleeve. Her eyes well up immediately. “The police concluded he must have swerved, maybe trying to miss an animal or something. It’s the sort of thing he would have done. But when he left the house that day, he and Dad had this fight—”

She bites into her lip to stop the hiccup in her throat. And he’s up, just like that, around the table, standing in front of her. And then his arms are around her and she’s hugging him like she might just fall apart with her face in his shoulder.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “Don’t talk about it. You don’t have to, yeah?”

She sniffles and pulls away.

“I almost want to.”

Frank studies her face. Those eyes. Those earnest eyes.

He nods.

“Screw the dishes,” he says, and he passes her wine glass to her. She laughs through her tears.

 

*

 

 Karen never talks about her brother. She never talks about home—she can never keep it together when she does—but Frank is . . . Frank, and out it comes. He lets her cry it out without much comment, nudging her where she needs it and reaching out slowly, haltingly, to slide his hand along her cheek, pushing her hair out of her face when tears become momentary sobs. They clear up eventually.

“What about your parents?” she asks, perched on the couch beside him with tears drying on her face and her knees tucked up to her chest.

Frank shakes his head.

“Both dead,” he says. “Long time ago, not shocking--you don’t look like that.”

Mortified, horrified, she doesn’t know what he expression is doing. Frank waves it off.

“My parents were basically senior citizens. They had no business having a kid so late, I don’t think they planned me.” He chuckles a little. “That probably explains a lot.”

It’s still a hiccuping sound, but Karen laughs a little.

“You’re an unexpected sort of person,” she agrees. Frank winks, and clicks his tongue. In his rare moments of humor, he’s such a smartass. Karen snorts.

“My dad died of lung cancer,” he explains, “they were from another time, you know, and he smoked like it was better than breathing. Mom went not long after—sometimes it’s like that. I was a wild kid, and I got a little wilder when it happened—I was a shithead at nineteen—but it was the kind of thing you could see coming, and you can make peace with that. I did a long time ago."

Karen nods.

“What about cousins, aunts, uncles?”

“Nah, not that I ever really knew. And Maria’s family . . . if they were gonna be around, that ship has sailed. It’s just me. Probably for the best.”

Her heart lurches.

“I’m glad it isn’t, that you’re here,” she blurts.

“ . . . Me too.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Are you not going to tell me to call my parents?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Not unless you really think I should.”

He shakes his head.

“Look, my family—I know what you’re thinking, Karen. I do. But not everyone in your life is meant to stay there. I get that. You call them, all you’re gonna feel is the hole where your brother should be, right? You don’t deserve that. Take care of you.”

For the second time tonight, she rests her cheek against his shoulder, uncurling from her position on the couch to lean against him and wrap her arms around his waist. He lays his arm across her shoulders.

 

*

 

Karen weighs more than she looks with those bird bones and tiny waist. The pressure of her against his side is soothing. She leans in for a hug, or something like it, and stays there. Shit, he keeps her there, holding her around her shoulders. They stay like that so long she starts drawing absent patterns with her fingertip into the fabric of his shirt. Some of them swirl. Some zigzag like the branches of her sad little Christmas tree--that thing has maybe ten ornaments on it, total.

He comments on that, and she feigns a pout.

“Be nice to my tree.”

“I’m not the one who left it naked.”

“I’m working on my ornament collection still.”

He looks down at her. She must feel his gaze, because she doesn’t look up, but leaves her face mostly turned into his chest as she answers.

“I want to collect ornaments by travelling. So far, I have some from Boston, and New York, and . . . that's it." She laughs a little. "I’ve got some ground to cover still.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Everywhere,” she breathes, “someday. The world can be ugly, but there’s so much of it, you know? All those people, all those lives. I don’t know how you could go through existing and not want to sample some of that . . . that human experience, you know?”

 _Now_ she looks up at him. He shakes his head.

“I’ve seen some of the world. People are people, no matter where you go.”

“ _Exactly.”_

He huffs. Her weight shifts, as if she’s leaning into the rumble in his chest.

“Is that a good thing?”

“I think it’s an amazing thing, more than good or bad.”

“Huh.”

“Huh?” She lifts her head again, bringing them eye to eye with his arm still around her shoulders and her palm still resting against his ribs. Frank shrugs. It’s a hard thing to put into words, how it feels to listen to her talk, devil’s angel like her.

“That’s one way to look at it,” he says, and it’s so natural, shit, it’s almost scary how easily it happens: he presses a kiss into her hair.

 

*

 

Karen falls asleep with her head on Frank’s thigh, and wakes up in her bed to the smell of eggs.

“Frank?”

He emerges from the main room at the sound of her voice, filling up her bedroom doorway.

“Scrambled ok?”

“Good morning,” she chuckles. “And yeah, scrambled is great. You didn’t have to put me to bed.”

“Yeah, well, you let the vino knock you out by ten pm, so someone had to do it.”

She slides out of bed and strolls up to him, arms crossed, expression firm. He laughs at her, and she can’t _not_ smile.

“I’ll put on some coffee,” she says, and nudges her way past him, letting her hand trail over his shoulder as she goes.

 

*

 

Frank tells her over breakfast to expect a package. He doesn’t tell her what it is, except to say “merry Christmas.” She’ll make a fuss when it comes in—200 dollar suitcase that it is—he knows that. But it’s a good gift. And she deserves that—hell, she deserves the world. If anyone is going to find the good in the mess of it, it’s her.

Twenty minutes later, they’re scrubbing up dishes together when she turns to him and takes his face in her soapy hands. Pulls his forehead down to hers, as easy and obvious a gesture as there ever was.

“Merry Christmas, Frank,” she says, and kisses his cheek. Not a short kiss. She dwells. It cracks his heart right open, giving her a little more space to climb in.

 


End file.
